The BBC’s His Dark Materials series just got a second season

The BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy hasn’t aired yet, but the network has already renewed the series for a second season, reports Deadline.

The series will adapt Pullman’s The Golden Compass and, presumably, its follow-ups The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.The epic series is set in an alternate world similar to ours except human souls are manifested externally as an animal that shape-shifts until puberty when it settles into a final form. Its protagonist is a girl named Lyra Belacqua who sets off for the Arctic to rescue a kidnapped friend and stumbles into a conspiracy by this universe’s equivalent of the Catholic Church to uncover and exploit the nature of a particle known as Dust. The Golden Compass was adapted as a film in 2007. Last year, Pullman released La Belle Sauvage, the first installment of the companion trilogy The Book of Dust.

The BBC originally greenlit the new series back in 2015 with an eight-episode season, and production recently began in Wales. The series will feature actress Dafne Keen (Logan) as Lyra, and it has added James McAvoy as Lyra’s father Lord Asriel, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) as aeronaut Lee Scoresby, and Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter.

In addition to word that the show will get a second season, Deadline also reports that HBO has joined the project as a co-producer. It’ll handle distribution of the show outside of the UK, which means that when His Dark Materials makes its debut, it’ll join the company of Game of Thrones and Westworld.